It's one of those days again: Apple held a product announcement today, announcing several new products. The most important of which was rumoured about for a long time now: a smaller iPad. It's called the iPad mini, and has the potential to become the best-selling iPad - and thus, the best selling tablet.

The fact that the features of the mini are so similar to the iPad 2 means that we iPad 2 owners have a new "promise" that our devices will be supported with OS updates for a couple more years.

I too own a Nexus 7. It's a good little device. Am I envious of the new iPad mini? Not really. My Nexus 7 gives me different things. My iPad 2 gives me different things. As a user and consumer, they both suit me. I don't think I need yet another/different tablet. But next time I upgrade (2+ years from now), I'll look in the iPad mini direction first I think. The size id much more convenient in general.

True, but the fact the iPad 2 is still in the line up guarantees another year. The fact that iOS 6 is also snappy as ever on the iPad 2 also bodes well. Not so for the iPhone 4, which now has pretty dismal performance in some situations.

Are you sure you know apple?? You do realize that even the old 3GS phones are running the new iOS, right? (sure, not with all functions, but still...)

The same cannot be said of the first gen iPad, even though it has more capable hardware than the 3gs. No iOS 6 for them, and for no better reason than Apple wants to use planned obsolescence techniques.

Because not updating the iPad 1 to "force" people to upgrade, yet still updating their 3GS phone which has not 2 newer replacement models, like the iPad, but 3(!) at time of (iOS 6) release means Apple obviously just wants people to upgrade.

really?

The little fact that the iPad 1 has almost the same specs as the 3gs yet a larger resolution screen and heavier tablet apps to toss around in 256mb of ram probably has nothing to do with it? Apple probably decided the performance was not good enough. And even then, why do people care? The iPad 1 is 2.5 years old. This is ancient in the computing world.

And it isn't like the iPad 1 is suddenly useless. iOS5.x will still have app support for a while yet. And even when apps stop supporting it, are the ones already on it suddenly going to quit working? no?

Really? I get downvoted? I see not much has changed in the past 10 years around here :p

At least it isn't as bad as Ars now! That new comment voting system they implemented has brought out the fanboys from every side. It is AMAZING how fast various types of comments will get voted into oblivion.

I don't think the issue is that the OS does not support multiple resolutions. It supports them fine.

The main issue is that, traditionally, most developers hard code positions and sizes into their apps making it difficult for apps to adapt to different resolutions automatically.

Both Microsoft and Google strive for resolution independence but as you can see from the apps themselves that process is just not very successful. This is mainly because it's easy to just let some fields stretch but it much more difficult to reorganize a UI dynamically for a larger screen.

Unless you are talking about the technique of pixel doubling a display (or another multiplier that results in integers, not floats) I strongly disagree. When I resize vectors (typically in Photoshop) to a by a non-even multiplier such as 1.33 (used by Nexus 7) i often have to re-arrange and redraw a lot of my graphics. With 2X (Retina Apple stuff, some Android devices) I just resize and all of it looks sharp (I might still do some adjustment, but I need to do way less than with non-even numbers.)

Even if you export everything to vectors you still have to think about where on the pixel grid those vectors actually fall (this will affect how sharp things look).

My comments about vectors applies to XAML as well. You still have to consider where things fall on the pixel grid.

Now it’s not impossible, we’ve been making complex adaptable layouts for browsers for some while now… it’s just way harder than dealing with a fixed surface such as the iPad or a piece of printed paper.

That's fine, and I hope people gripe on here as much about the resultant black bars from letterboxing with Windows 8 as they did about the black bars on the iPhone 5's bigger screen, but somehow I doubt that will happen.

Yes, it's not because iOS cannot handle different resolutions at the low level (e.g. display drivers). It's because its UI toolkit does not come with a proper layout manager as standard. This makes many applications hard-code layouts for specific resolutions, making change of the resolution on new devices a pain. So it doesn't matter much that iOS could run with a different resolution. It's still not going to happen: otherwise all apps will look ugly at launch.

Android apps handle different resolutions fairly well. Of course, there's no magic that will automatically optimize your layout for different screen sizes, but similar sizes with different resolutions work fine.
iPad mini will have the size problem too -- even though the resolution matches previous 10" iPad many apps might want to use a different layout on the smaller 7" screen.

UIKit does actually come with a proper layout manager, it had it from day one,
As many other things in cocoa touch it was inherited from mac UI frameworks (years back I believe from NEXT), If a developer use standard UIKit widgets (and many does) he can define layout attributes very easily from the interface builder, no need to write single line of code.
using standard view controllers doesn't even requires to define anything.
for standard UI apps all a developer has to do to support the iphone5 resolution for example may very well be just updating the splash screen image.

The reason it doesn't happen automatically is because apple wants to force developers to test the apps on the new resolutions.
The reason apple got to this unfortunate state in the first place comes from the fact that unlike android, all the iOS devices that were running iOS at the time apple opened it for third party development had the same screen and same resolution, Lots of developers were lazy and just statically positioned elements, it worked perfectly on every iOS device back then.

The situation is very different from android where from the very beginning it was obvious that android devices will come at different shapes, sizes and resolutions.

On the other hand though, the fact that developers has to test and create updated build to support new resolutions is also one of the main reasons that encourage app developers to create a proper suitable layout for the iPad form factor.
As you say, Android apps handle different resolutions fairly well, so it's good enough reason for lots of developers to leave it as it is.

This should go a decent way towards assisting developers create flexible UIs. Admittedly it's a few years too late and IMHO still not as intuitive as most XML(/other UI-domain specific language)-based frameworks, but it's the best thing Apple's come up with yet.

You are exactly right, but it was an opportunity for Thom to get in a dig at Apple in the article, pure and simple. The same thing applies to Android and the dozens of screen resolutions of all the various phones and tablets that exist. That's great for choice, but horrible for developers, who have to try and support all those resolutions. Sadly it doesn't happen, and some apps work on some phones and tablets and others don't. Combine that with the fact that most of the Android devices out there are running an OS that is 4-5 versions back from the latest one, and you have a true mess. Apple is avoiding this mess by making the iPad mini's screen resolution a complete non-issue for developers. Existing apps all WORK.

It's still a trade-off. Apple's choices have made it more difficult to let iOS and its applications support multiple resolutions - but they did so to make it easier on developer. However, the downside is that resolution has become a constraining factor in designing iOS hardware.

Android made a different choice, with different tradeoffs. Pointing that out is not a dig at Apple - it's a simple and cold fact.

I'm in the same boat. A Mac Pro refresh needs to happen. It's obvious they're gong to drop optical drives and go to sandybridge xeons.. just get it over with already.

Funny thing is I put money into a new 5770 radeon card and bought some faster xeon's off ebay to beef up my Mac Pro 1,1. It's now an 8 core with current graphics, but I can't run mountain lion. If it weren't for that, I'd be content right now.

I'm in the same boat. A Mac Pro refresh needs to happen. It's obvious they're gong to drop optical drives and go to sandybridge xeons.. just get it over with already. .

I too want a Mac Pro update but when you saw the list presented at the event today of all hardware/products that has been upgraded and redesigned this year one can see how busy their design team (which is not large) has been. I get the impression that the Mac Pro may also be redesigned and not just upgraded and I am hoping for something radical.

A refresh would be nice if for nothing else to drive down the prices yet more of the older Mac Pros. I'm in the 1,1 boat as well, and considering just buying a more modern used one that can run Mountain Lion. But I too want to wait for Thunderbolt support so perhaps I can find out any requirements for adding a TB card to an existing Mac Pro.

They can't update the Mac Pro yet. Intel is late delivering Ivy Xeon. There is no point to release another one with Sandy Xeon, they are already old. Also, the Mac Pro is one of the last custom workstation, it will take a while before they can integrate Ivy or Haswell Xeon. They have to start from scratch, they can't use the reference design like everybody else. Apple probably have a very little team for this given it is a niche product and Apple gave up on niches.

When was discovered that the resolution of the Surface RT was 1366x768, Thom said "poor, poor Surface", like this alone would be the end of MS' tablet.
Now, when the iPad mini has an even lower resolution, 1024x768, "Resolution isn't everything". Very interesting in seeing how one changes its own opinions so quickly, isn't it?

Dude, you do realize the Surface costs as much as the new iPad (the one with the retina(tm)(c) display), so it's only reasonable to compare against that? So, although resolution isn't everything, the comparison the buyer will make is indeed bad for the Surface (i think that's what he said by "poor, poor surface", not that it is a substandard product). The mini iPad is better compared to the Nexus 7, and as the poster said, it price and screen vs apps and enclosure.

When was discovered that the resolution of the Surface RT was 1366x768, Thom said "poor, poor Surface", like this alone would be the end of MS' tablet.
Now, when the iPad mini has an even lower resolution, 1024x768, "Resolution isn't everything". Very interesting in seeing how one changes its own opinions so quickly, isn't it?

Will you be splurging on the new 13-inch MacBook Pro for its "retina display"? I hope not, because resolution aside, that is a p.o.s. device considering its $1700 price tag.

One thing I don't get about "retina display" fanboys, if "retina display" is so great, how come you guys don't demand it on your 27-inch monitors, where it would REALLY shine? Seems a waste on a small screen, if you ask me. I admit that my aging eyes aren't sharp enough to see individual pixels on a phone or tablet at 720p so using a higher resolution would make no difference to me on such small screens. But you young-uns claim to be able to see individual pixels on those small screens, and therefore do back flips over "retina display"; but it seems that on a big 23-inch or 27-inch monitor, you'd be able to see individual pixels even more, yet you're satisfied with 1080p on those big monitors. It makes no sense, and seems to me to be a good bit of brainwashing by Apple's superb marketing machine, an outfit which could successfully convice folks that a new Apple-branded abacus is a newly invented revolutionary "game changing" computing device.

When I see "retina display" fanboys condemn Apple's retina-display-less laptops and iMacs for lack of such a display AND when I see those same "retina display" fanboys open their wallets for Apple's retina display $1700 dual-core laptops and $2200 quad-core laptops for the sole purpose of getting a "retina display", then I'll believe that they really do think that "retina display" is all that and a bag of chips. But until then, I'll continue to maintain that "retina display" serves only two purposes: as a talking point for Apple's marketing machine as they run out of ideas, and as ammo for Apple's fanboys to use in the fanboy wars.

You probably already knew this, but technically those 27in screens are "retina" already, especially if they have the 27in iMac resolution. It's all determined by where your head is in relation to a screen and its size, not just the resolution. In simple terms - if you can't see the pixels from your normal position, its retina.

I also think it has to do with performance and diminishing returns. You can have a screen that is really close to retina, so you don't really see a need to spend more to bump it over the line into offical retina.

It's almost charming how kurkosdr and Thom are all completely avoid the issue. Isn't "retina display" the factor that set the iPad from the rest? Wasn't it the revolutionary feature that made all other tablets dinosaurs?

Hardware-wise, the only thing the first 3 gens of the iPad 10" tablet impressed me with was the retina display on the iPad3 - everything else was available on other tablets in some sort of similar form.

The iPad Mini? The only impressive hardware thing seems to be the weight of thing - everything else, again, seems to be available on other 7" tablets already out.

What's quite shocking is that the 16GB iPad Mini costs 50% more than my 16GB Nexus 7. For that extortionate price, it has a lower resolution, two less CPU cores, no NFC and no GPS.

The problem is that the 7" tablet market is much more price-sensitive than the 10" market because people want something easily pocketable that doesn't cost a lot of pocket change. By making the iPad Mini actually wider and taller than the N7 and charging half as much again for, what, an extra rear camera that very few people would use, they've failed on both counts.

Being based in the UK, there's only two sub-200 pounds 7" tablets worth considering at the moment - if you're on a budget and don't care about tons of apps, the 129 pounds 64GB Playbook is a bargain (I have one) and if you want a slick 7" tablet with fast CPU/GPU and tons of apps, the Nexus 7 is still the only choice.

In the UK, Amazon dismally failed to release the original Kindle Fire (there's no technical reason why they didn't, other than sheer laziness/US-centric attitude - ther original Fire is bizarrely launching on 25th Oct in the UK for the first time and no-one in their right minds would buy it compared to the Fire HD or Nexus 7 surely?) and took a year to even bring their frankly dismal (both for users and devs) Amazon App Store to the UK.

However, a rooted/ROM'ed Kindle Fire HD in the UK - launched in 2 days! - might finally challenge the Nexus 7 here. It's our first Kindle Fire-branded tablet in the UK, but with a horribly locked down OS that just screams to be CyanagenMod'ed.

It does seem that Amazon have neglected the UK badly with their tablets and appstore (UK users missed out on a year's worth of Free App of the Day for one thing!) and as such, left it to the Nexus 7 to dominate UK 7" tablet sales (along with a Playbook spike because they're at firesale prices a la Touchpad in the UK at the moment).

Because it's "extortionate" for Apple to make a profit, _any_ profit? The Nexus is being sold at cost. If Apple sold the iPad mini at cost, I'm fairly sure it would be cheaper than the Nexus simply because of their _much_ tighter engineering and manufacturing that's pumping these things out by the millions.

I own a Nexus 7. The build quality is horrible, but it's a fairly okay device. It is not half as hardy as my iPad 2, nor is is as fast. The iPad Mini is on a par with the iPad 2, but with general improvements, therefore is more than likely a better all round tablet.

Android on the Nexus 7 is not snappy all of the time. Some apps are pretty dire, and the battery life is appalling. Not "in use" battery life, as that is as Google/Asus advertises, but if it is asleep for a day, it loses 10-20% battery life. From a full charge, I can leave it with no use for a number of days (say 3) and it is near 20% when I next use it. There's no rhyme or reason, and it doesn't matter what apps I kill. There's something fundamentally wrong with the OS or one of the Apps I have installed. I'm not about to delete them all, so I deal with it. In contrast, I can leave my iPad 2 for 2 weeks from a full charge and it will still be above 80%. One of these tablets is doing something right... (if anyone wants to "help" me track down the bad App, I'm open to that - but it's not really a high priority for me. As I said, I just charge the tablet every few days.)

Today it (for the second time in less than a week) it threw up the "You must charge now" dialog, then almost immediately turned off. The next 30 minutes was a battle with convincing it to charge. After performing the "magic" 30 second power button press, it was okay and charged. But as to how long that will last is hard to say. Google tells me I'm not alone here.

How is it horrible? Seems pretty decent to me.
I had a similar battery life problem for a while, but it seems that 4.1.2 update fixed it. Does battery life diagram in settings show anything interesting?

iPad will stay charged for a month if I leave it in standby (sleeping, but "on".) I've done that before and from a full charge it was still circa 40% charged. I would expect the same from the Nexus 7. I don't get anywhere near that though. I'll take some of the advice presented in this thread and investigate!

To analyse apps/services running on your Android machine, you might want to look for "SystemPanelLite Task Manager" in the Google Play store. You'd be surprised how many apps install a service that might chew battery life during sleeping.

If you want a semi-automated way to improve battery life when sleeping, something like the very popular (10m+ downloads!) "JuiceDefender" in Google Play might be another thing to look at.

As you say, it might be something waking up the tablet regularly to do some syncing or polling. Examples could include Gmail, Google Currents etc. - turn off any auto-syncing for those to see if it makes any difference.

As you say, it might be something waking up the tablet regularly to do some syncing or polling. Examples could include Gmail, Google Currents etc. - turn off any auto-syncing for those to see if it makes any difference.

I turned off auto-syncing, location and bluetooth after about a week. I do use Gmail, Currents, Facebook and Twitter, so maybe its one of those. I also do have Flash installed, but I was under the impression that it only gets used by browsers that support it, Chrome not being one. We'll see!

Well raw power isn't everything... as long the tablet is able to load apps faster I don't mind... also to me now is more appealing an ipad because of apps. If I took the nexus I would have easily spent those 80 € of difference in apps

Who cares! Really! Anyone who was actually surprised by this move by Apple is someone I have to wonder about. The problem Apple is going to face is the onslaught of cheaper, (and arguably better) tablets sporting Android 4.x that are hitting the streets as we speak. With cheaper Android tablets that are often times more powerful (spec wise) how will Apple be able to justify the iPod touch and the iPad mini which are nearly double the cost?

Who cares! Really! Anyone who was actually surprised by this move by Apple is someone I have to wonder about. The problem Apple is going to face is the onslaught of cheaper, (and arguably better) tablets sporting Android 4.x that are hitting the streets as we speak. With cheaper Android tablets that are often times more powerful (spec wise) how will Apple be able to justify the iPod touch and the iPad mini which are nearly double the cost?

That's easy. They'll do what they normally do. Have a market engine that will appeal to your vanity, not your sensibility.

I was hoping they'd at least put an A5X chip in there rather than just the A5. Spec wise, this thing seems rather similar to the iPod Touch with a larger screen (although a lower resolution). I'm not sure how it'll do against the Nexus 7. It doesn't fair well in price, but most iOS apps seem to be better quality than their Android counterparts, so it might win there. As a geek I'm perhaps biased to say it doesn't have high enough specs, but then again, that doesn't matter to 99% of the people who will buy it. It's that revised iPad 3 that actually interests me more than the new Mini. With that upgraded processor, that thing is going to fly.

I was hoping they'd at least put an A5X chip in there rather than just the A5.

Apple is not going to put the A5X in anything new - it doesn't make sense for them to do that. The A5X is still a 45nm chip, while the currently manufactured version of the A5 is 32nm - the A5X is over twice as big and uses ALOT more power.

Its all about maximizing profitability on varied products - the A5 is used in ALOT of devices (iPad2, iPod Touch, AppleTV, and now iPad mini). Its tiny, so you can make a whole lot of them cheap - and it is packaged with RAM on the chip, so it needs much less PCB area. Apple is going to put it into anything they deem "value oriented".

The A5X is is a layover from the previous generation. It is probably cheaper for Apple to make an A6X now, as it is much smaller and uses the same process node as the A5.

I expect you will either never see another new product with an A5X in it, or it will get shrunk to 32nm first (like the A5 was) if there is ever an "Old New iPad" type SKU.

Besides, your really don't need 4 GPUs to push a 1024x768 screen. Other than the GPUs, there isn't all that much difference between the two chips.

I was hoping they'd at least put an A5X chip in there rather than just the A5.

The only differences between the A5 and the A5X are the CPU speed (800 in the iPhone vs 1000 MHz in the iPad 3) and number of GPU cores (2 vs 4). The *only* reason there's 4 GPU cores in the A5X is to support increase in pixels in the iPad 3.

The iPad mini has (approx) the same number of pixels as the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4, so why shove a ginormous GPU into it?

Bump the CPU clock up a bit and you have a tablet-friendly version of the A5.

Or dead on arrival ? Come on I know it is a little bit trollish, but still, I'm pretty sure that the iPad mini is the beginning of a break with the Jobs era at apple.

However I am quite please with Apple shining a better light on seemingly dead tech (hybrid hdd never took off, I hope they will with Apple support). And not dispointed that they didn't put a retina display in the mini ( make sense in a marketing point of view as they need room to improve the design ).
As for the rest of the announcements, they are quite boring in my opinion.

High impact polymers ie "plastic" is not cheap crap. It is actually the optimum case material for phones and tablets. Aluminium and glass are the real "crap" materials - glass is heavy and structurally weak and aluminium scrathes and dents easily.

The problem is that industrial designers such James Dyson and Jonathon Ives can't draw or sculpt well enough to be real artists. They also aren't intelligent enough to be real engineers. So they produce highly compromised designs that perform badly and lack durability. [eg Dyson vacuum cleaners consistently perform worse than much cheaper conventional models.]

From a materials engineering perspective you are right. Problem is, people or lacks the knowledge, in which case they just throw all kind of plastics in the same trashcan, or go for what they see as beautiful, what can be disputed as wise but is a valid argument, or do not give a damn and sheep follows whatever is trend.

High impact polymers ie "plastic" is not cheap crap. It is actually the optimum case material for phones and tablets. Aluminium and glass are the real "crap" materials - glass is heavy and structurally weak and aluminium scrathes and dents easily.
[...] highly compromised designs that perform badly and lack durability.

Worse, glass & aluminium feel unpleasantly cold to the touch ...here, used in a device you're supposed to hold in your hands, WTH?

I hated my Nokia E50 for that reason, don't want to get anything metal-clad any more. It baffles me that people seem to love it (or does fashion overrule ~hate?)

Bought an "SUSV" Nexus 7 one week ago :p Jelly Bean 4.1.2 is a breeze, coding is a pleasure !

249 €/$ for a 16 GB device, 7" impressive 1280x800 IPS, 1.3 GHZ quad-core Tegra 3, wifi+bt+gps+nfc, it just lack rear cam (not that important for a tablet) and a microSD slot. 350 g ! Last more than 9 hours 1080p playback.

Updates are immediately available (unlike many many Android devices) and the PlayStore is full open. No needs to root the device, you can install anything and code as you wish (just download the Nexus 7 ADB driver from ASUS).

Again, Try to install the Amazon store app on your Nexus 7 right now - it is still listed as "not supported on your nexus 7" as of my last attempt today. Yet, oddly, it installs just fine from the Amazon app store. Mod me down if you have tried this and can prove I'm wrong, otherwise grow some balls you fucking sheep.

The point is the Amazon app is one of the 5 or so apps I attempted to install on "day one". 3 or so months later, it is still apparently blocked (for what ever reason.) There's no *good* reason, because it installs and runs fine if you use Amazon's app store or an APK. But why should I, a consumer, have to jump through those types of hoops? Average Joe won't.

Maybe, but it's from RIM, who is one of the companies the tech media loves to piss on and root against.

Apple is on the other extreme, where they get praised for even mediocre crap, like the new 13-inch MacBook Pro. That people are actually going to praise and buy that thing for $1700 just because it has "retina" display, despite being mediocre in all other aspects, is a joke, but is also a credit to Apple's marketing machine, and is also an illustration of the tech media allowing Apple to get away murder (figuratively speaking, of course).

It's not about hardware though, it's about software. The RIM software is still in catch up mode and the amount of apps is a joke. Coupled with the fact that RIM seem to have EOL'd the original Playbook (and all retailer are desperately trying to offload them at super-discounted prices, a 64GB one is under £200 now, more like £130 if you shop around), the future seems pretty bleak to me.

You think 1024x768 is too low for a 8" tablet? Check out the resolution on the new Microsoft Surface (10") tablet.

It is nice to finally see a tablet where the bezel is very small, making the screen nearly the size of the unit. This 8" tablet is about the size of other manufacturers 7" tablets. I think this is the ideal size/form factor for me. I do no use the Apple ecosystem so I hope others take a nice hard look at what Apple has done and make a nice Android Jellybean version of the new ipad mini.

The mini is too expensive. Even if it's better build than the current mini Android tablets. I think it could make a killing at $299 with a $50 premium over the inexpensively build Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire.

i'm not sure on this one. personally, i am broke as a joke and have an ipad 2 that is rock solid and packed with hundreds of apps, so the mini is not for me.

i have heard, however, that the k-12 education market in the us in very (very) interested in this form factor, enough to perhaps earn the green light after steve jobs dissed it for so long.

android tablets have been a disaster for education (for a variety of reasons) and the existing iPads are a bit too large/heavy/valuable/breakable to be ideal investments for every 3rd grader in the district to drag around every day.

instead of waiting around for a win8-clone tablet to scoop up this market tim cook gave in and they did the kindle-sized ipad, just cheap enough to give to kids in fortunate districts.

remember size and scale here -- a county tech office could support 30 districts totaling over 40k students. these are single purchase orders that apple has been building towards and everyone else wants a piece of. if surface starts at $600 (with cover) this looks attractive at $320 for cash strapped school districts.

i know nothing of school districts in china, but perhaps they would be ordering more than 40k units as well?

just a few school districts decide to go with the mini and it already outsells every android tablet and probably the first couple versions of the surface.

Not sure why you'd want a shrunken iPad 2 if you've already got one or, for that matter, why you'd want one if you can buy an iPad 2 for not a lot more than the shrunken one.

No great fan of the iPad, nonetheless the ipad Mini seem a trifle expensive for the wannabe but can't afford the iPad market. If you can afford the mini you can afford the real deal and if you really can't then it makes little sense to be buying the mini. But, senseless numbnuts are common enough.

android tablets have been a disaster for education (for a variety of reasons) and the existing iPads are a bit too large/heavy/valuable/breakable to be ideal investments for every 3rd grader in the district to drag around every day.

Source for that statement?

As strapped as schools are for cash, Apple would have to undercut the prices of the Nexus 7 to make them even an option worth discussing.

As a parent of a child in high-school, I have asked him if he would rather read his books on a tablet computer or for me to just keep buying the books - he'd rather read the actual paper books.

In addition, a 3rd grader would have to not be held liable for any damage caused to a tablet - they tend to drop and break stuff.

"android tablets have been a disaster for education (for a variety of reasons) and the existing iPads are a bit too large/heavy/valuable/breakable to be ideal investments for every 3rd grader in the district to drag around every day.

Source for that statement?

As strapped as schools are for cash, Apple would have to undercut the prices of the Nexus 7 to make them even an option worth discussing.

As a parent of a child in high-school, I have asked him if he would rather read his books on a tablet computer or for me to just keep buying the books - he'd rather read the actual paper books.

In addition, a 3rd grader would have to not be held liable for any damage caused to a tablet - they tend to drop and break stuff.

The money for schools would better be spent on teacher salaries. "

Source -- I work in the K-12 software market, and have been on the front lines for the tablet takeover. We have extensive district contacts. The iPad 1 & 2 are useful and reliable, but a little large, heavy, and expensive per unit for the kids. I don't know of any district that bought iPad3's because they were waiting for a mini or windows tablet to be useable.

Of course the kids don't pay when it breaks, the district does, which is why the plastic android tablets are generally avoided. Kids can break large numbers of those things in weeks, not years. Security issues are also a major problem on large rollouts of android tablets, partly from user ignorance as 3rd graders aren't linux/android hackers and K-12 IT is very understaffed, so they need a device that can mostly manage itself.

There's also familiarity. Almost every one of these kids has or has played with an iPad. Kids often learn it faster than adults because of Apple's stellar work on human to machine interfaces. I know my boy was 4 and could run the iPad as good or better than his mother (at first). It's just natural to them, not magical.

The money might be better spent on teacher's salaries, but that's for the school board and voters to work out. Bottom line is they have a tech budget, and they need to get useable tech to all kids in the district, and it has to incorporate their curriculum and be reliable. tablets beat laptops in this regard, so many districts have rolled out tablets or will be shortly.

Most in the US education market believe we are very close to moving nearly the entire printed curriculum to a tablet format, and issuing tablets to students will be equivalent to issuing them an ID.

As far as your kid wanting real books -- good! I love real books, no one wants to kill those. But he shouldn't be required to carry 40lbs of books around with him all day, especially if those printed books are years out of date.

Districts are more interested in durability and long term usability far more than initial hardware price. Part of the reason old Apples are still all over schools is because of this durability.

This nexus tab for $100 less will more than likely be abandoned on the software front within 2 years, whereas most districts will get 5+ school years out of their iPad investment.

Finally, hardware is only part of it -- as textbooks become software, the book purchase agreements move to software licenses, and schools are looking to save some money there too. 500 3rd grade science books cost alot to purchase, ship, and store, and they come with NO updates. If the eBook makers cut a better deal (and they should) that's an offer schools can't afford to pass up.

I would venture to guess that the software company you work for writes applications targeted specifically for iOS. Is that an accurate assumption?

There are some things I would like to point out. As it stands today, Apple has a horrible history when it comes to deal with eBook publishers (see the lawsuit against Apple by the Justice Department). One thing that we have seen when it comes to Apple is that they will always charge an over the top premium to ensure their profits are maximized. That's not a bad thing for their stock holders - but for budget strapped schools, it's not a good thing.

Now, there are some false statements that you have made in your post that I would like to discuss further with you.

1. Durability - when we are talking about school children, we are talking about them dropping stuff. If you do a simple search you'll see where iPads generally lose the majority of "drop tests" that are performed. The whole "Android is just cheap plastic" is part of a marketing strategy to try to make it sound as if iOS devices are better. They clearly are not.

2. Familiarity - since Android has such an overwhelming market lead over iOS, the majority of people out there are more familiar with Android. Studies and market trends show that Android tablets will surpass Apple's tablets in the near future.

3. Digital books still come with a premium price. It doesn't help to lower the cost when Apple is involved, as they will ensure they get a large cut of money on the books as well. That is a recipe for disaster based on Apple's history.

4. To say that Tablet X will be supported for 5+ years for Tablet Y will be phased out in 2 years is really silly to state. Based on the movement of the market, and what history has shown us, that simply isn't true.

Now, I am not sure what software your company writes. My guess if we are talking about eBooks, then it's simply an eBook reader - just an app. In which manner, your company would be better offer targeting both platforms (Android and iOS) if you want to ensure that you aren't left out with only being able to support a minority of users if market trends continue in the direction they are heading.

I would venture to guess that the software company you work for writes applications targeted specifically for iOS. Is that an accurate assumption?

nope. but we've seen rapid adoption of iOS in the last 2 years, from both administration and students.

There are some things I would like to point out. As it stands today, Apple has a horrible history when it comes to deal with eBook publishers (see the lawsuit against Apple by the Justice Department). One thing that we have seen when it comes to Apple is that they will always charge an over the top premium to ensure their profits are maximized. That's not a bad thing for their stock holders - but for budget strapped schools, it's not a good thing.

Now, there are some false statements that you have made in your post that I would like to discuss further with you.

your authoritarian language has me intrigued. but apple does not charge "over the top premium". this has no concept of value. factor in reliability and something called "Total Cost of Ownership" and you might see apple in a different light.

1. Durability - when we are talking about school children, we are talking about them dropping stuff. If you do a simple search you'll see where iPads generally lose the majority of "drop tests" that are performed. The whole "Android is just cheap plastic" is part of a marketing strategy to try to make it sound as if iOS devices are better. They clearly are not.

clearly? nope. dropping only? also nope. how about book bag flexing, sliding, stacking? you are so quick to dismiss so much, sorry. show me one budget minded android product built better overall than an iDevice. how about consistency of yield? failure/return rates? android tablets are crapola in this regard.

2. Familiarity - since Android has such an overwhelming market lead over iOS, the majority of people out there are more familiar with Android. Studies and market trends show that Android tablets will surpass Apple's tablets in the near future.

wow sorry internet person you lost me. overwhelming market share? gimme a break. apple had been owning mobile gadgetry for years before android even existed. every kid in america can run an ipod, and most have been running iOS devices since at least 2008-09. android is for geeks that read OS news and people who wanted an iphone but wanted it for free.

go to meetings and look around. in my town (one of the poorest in america) there are iphones and ipads everywhere, like over 50%. android does well on 'total phones shipped', but they aren't dominating in 'total phones used by real people all day long'.

3. Digital books still come with a premium price. It doesn't help to lower the cost when Apple is involved, as they will ensure they get a large cut of money on the books as well. That is a recipe for disaster based on Apple's history.

Apple pays more to the music artists stocked in the Apple store than any other digital store at that scale. They get their cut for bringing the efficiencies to market.

4. To say that Tablet X will be supported for 5+ years for Tablet Y will be phased out in 2 years is really silly to state. Based on the movement of the market, and what history has shown us, that simply isn't true.

This has been the case so far, with android tablets literally being abandoned in the same year they are purchased, and on the flip side waiting months for a software update. True, iPad1 isn't going to be solid in 2015, but iPad2 and iPad3 will both be readily used through 2015. Same lifespan as iPhones, which usually are hot for 1.5 years, middle of road for 2 years, then old and slow after about 3.5 years. but about half of them chug on after that, since they are built so well.

Now, I am not sure what software your company writes. My guess if we are talking about eBooks, then it's simply an eBook reader - just an app. In which manner, your company would be better offer targeting both platforms (Android and iOS) if you want to ensure that you aren't left out with only being able to support a minority of users if market trends continue in the direction they are heading.

Just my 2 cents......

thanks for the 2 cents, but we don't do ebooks. we do data mining and item analysis and we are watching android closely, and have been for years. but the districts just aren't willing to experiment with massive buys of this constantly shifting and shifty operating system. for them, apple is the safe buy, not the radical departure that some on this site believe.

rest assured all the wishful thinking in the world won't make android take over tablets. free phones? sure, apple doesn't want to do free phones. they don't make money off ads and personal data like google. so free phones are great for google.

schools want reliability, stability, low total cost of ownership, and as easy management as possible. if someone crams win8 onto a good tab for $200 that will be the real competition to the ipad, not android.

I would venture to guess that the software company you work for writes applications targeted specifically for iOS. Is that an accurate assumption?

I have first hand experience in how schools are purchasing hardware in the UK. They are moving towards Tablets at an alarming rate. This is a fact. We supply both "netbook" class and "tablet" class devices, and the netbooks are not selling. No one is asking for Android, mainly because there is too much market saturation and too much turnover of specific devices. The types of tablets schools want are iPad class. Android has few of these and they don't compare well to the iPad in build quality or reliability. A school wants to pick a specific model and then have 500 of those every year, they don't want to have to chop and change manufacturers and have small nuances in hardware between years. You buy an iPad and everything just works. That is the perception, and that is also the reality we are seeing.

There are some things I would like to point out. As it stands today, Apple has a horrible history when it comes to deal with eBook publishers (see the lawsuit against Apple by the Justice Department).

Not relevant. The schools often use specific apps to teach the kids, they use specific text that is distributed to the devices. The textbooks are "icing" not necessity. Especially with the younger kids.

One thing that we have seen when it comes to Apple is that they will always charge an over the top premium to ensure their profits are maximized. That's not a bad thing for their stock holders - but for budget strapped schools, it's not a good thing.

The prices the kids pay are nowhere near the retail price. Even when you factor in the length of time the parents pay over. Apple gives a very generous educational discount.

1. Durability - when we are talking about school children, we are talking about them dropping stuff. If you do a simple search you'll see where iPads generally lose the majority of "drop tests" that are performed. The whole "Android is just cheap plastic" is part of a marketing strategy to try to make it sound as if iOS devices are better. They clearly are not.

No, this is rubbish. I've seen an iphone 4s drop tested vs a Galaxy 3 and the Galaxy smashed to bits, whereas the iPhone 4 (glass backed) still functioned. The iPad is mainly aluminium. As long as the screen is protected it takes a *lot* more force than the average drop test to break an average model.Especially given the stature of most 9 year olds. All iPads should be in a case anyway, to mitigate damage. This would be the same for any Android device I'd give to a 9 year old.

2. Familiarity - since Android has such an overwhelming market lead over iOS, the majority of people out there are more familiar with Android. Studies and market trends show that Android tablets will surpass Apple's tablets in the near future.

These are kids. Kids pick up OS like a duck swims in water. My own kids (7, 9, 11) happily swap between XP, Windows 7, Mac OS X, iOS and Android. No one has ever sat down and explained the difference to them in depth, they just naturally adjust. You point is therefore pretty vacuous.

Remember, this isn't about "popular". The UK school system used Acorn for 20 years.. believe me, they were pretty unpopular outside of education.

3. Digital books still come with a premium price. It doesn't help to lower the cost when Apple is involved, as they will ensure they get a large cut of money on the books as well. That is a recipe for disaster based on Apple's history.

iBooks author is free. iBooks author makes free books that you are able to distribute to other people (but not for a fee.) iBooks app on the iPad will open epub, iBooks format and PDF. I'm failing to see where Apple is demanding or even forcing a specific model for distribution here. FUD is what I hear coming from you. How is Apple making money from book sales any different to Amazon or Google Play?

4. To say that Tablet X will be supported for 5+ years for Tablet Y will be phased out in 2 years is really silly to state. Based on the movement of the market, and what history has shown us, that simply isn't true.

To say that anything Google's Android currently runs on will still be supported by a consumer level upgrade in 5 years from purchase is very unlikely. The iPad is also shaky, but if Apple has a foothold in education, they do have the incentive.

Now, I am not sure what software your company writes. My guess if we are talking about eBooks, then it's simply an eBook reader - just an app. In which manner, your company would be better offer targeting both platforms (Android and iOS) if you want to ensure that you aren't left out with only being able to support a minority of users if market trends continue in the direction they are heading.

I believe his exact words were "educational software" so you made a giant quantum leap there. Your 2 cents seem to be worth about half a penny in real terms.

I don't know about your country, but here in the UK we run a scheme where parents pay for the iPad through an agreement the school sets up. The scheme is like a rent to buy type arrangement over 2 or 3 years. £10 a month. Includes insurance for accidental damage.

The claims on iPads or horrendous though. Giving any tablet to a young kid is pretty stupid. They break them with a regularity that is astounding. Some of the excuses we hear is almost as priceless as "my dog ate my homework".

Would I ever give a Nexus 7 tablet to a child? No. It would be broken in half the time. The iPad is a sealed device. The Nexus 7 can be pried apart with a fingernail.

I don't know about your country, but here in the UK we run a scheme where parents pay for the iPad through an agreement the school sets up. The scheme is like a rent to buy type arrangement over 2 or 3 years. £10 a month. Includes insurance for accidental damage.

The claims on iPads or horrendous though. Giving any tablet to a young kid is pretty stupid. They break them with a regularity that is astounding. Some of the excuses we hear is almost as priceless as "my dog ate my homework".

Would I ever give a Nexus 7 tablet to a child? No. It would be broken in half the time. The iPad is a sealed device. The Nexus 7 can be pried apart with a fingernail.

I agree on the nexus, and every android tablet i've ever held at best buy -- would never get close to passing apple QA.

As far as charing the students for the gear, this is all determined by the "school board" in the states, which is in effect the elected leaders of the school district. districts are in the 2k-10k range for total student count.

I personally haven't seen a district in my area charge the student anything for tablet tech, but i know it's out there (especially in private institutions). Parents of students in 'free' education in america end up paying for a lot these days, as all sorts of extracurriculars and sports gear require parent purchase. But these tech buys are high-profile for the district so they usually foot the bill and buy a few extras for the inevitable failures in child-machine interaction ;-).

Yes, the cost of an ipad mini could buy a set of football pads and paint supplies for the student, but that is a budget discussion, not an OSNews type of discussion.

It should be compared to the price of other textbooks and teaching aids (the things it replaces, not displaces). it literally puts most of the worlds printed materials, as well as the teacher's custom curriculum, in a 1lb device which is good for kids. trust me, they are not amazed and wowed by this modern tech like us old fugs, they just expect it to be.

ipod, ipod touch, iphone, ipad, and soon ipad mini is more of a part of most young american kids' lives than most of you europeans might imagine. i can't even imagine the software they are going to come up with 10 years....

Thom has a penchant for writing very good statements and following them up with extremely stupid statements.

One example of the latter is, "The iPad mini has all the specifications we already knew. It has a 7.9" display, with a rather paltry 1024x768 display. Because iOS doesn't support different resolutions very well, Apple had no choice but to sit at the bottom of the barrel here..."

Apparently Thom doesn't listen very well as to why Apple sticks to certain screen resolutions.

One of the keys to making developers happy for the company that makes devices to not make life any more head banging than needs be. Steve Jobs (and I) feels that keeping the number of resolutions you support on mobile devices allows the developer less headaches by a long shot when creating their graphics.

Android is a huge mess when it comes to device resolutions. There is nothing approaching a standard. That is good if you have one developing creating one product and he wants resolution "A". Well, resolution A may only be good for that one developer. It might be a horrible one for everyone else.

Android seems to be using the noodle cooking method where you keep throwing noodles at the wall until something sticks and you know you are done.

Actually both Android device makers and Apple do the same thing. The difference is that Apple did it within the company and Android is continuing to do it out there in the world.

Ask any developer how much they like developing for Android when it comes to screen graphics and supporting multiple devices. Most will tell you that it is very frustrating and head banging to support the more than 15 resolutions that different Android devices have. Whereas they only have to worry about three when it comes to iOS devices, and then each are just multiples of the lowest.

Too bad that Apple couldn't have gotten past Beta with Siri like they did with screen resolutions. But then Siri is a lot harder to do.

Well, it's like coding iStuff in the old fashioned "pixel" scale, while Android and OpenGL provides "viewport" scale (from -1 to 1). Modern OS do use the DPI factor to adapt UI size to the screen resolution, strange that Apple still cannot cope with just an arithmetical operation to adapt any "viewport" sale to any "pixel" resolution.